Synopsis

Set in the turbulent times leading up to the Meiji Restoration, when power was returned from the Tokugawa military government in Edo to the imperial court in Kyoto, the novel centers on the activities of the Shinsengumi, a group made up largely of masterless samurai. These ronin are appointed the task of curtailing the lawlessness in Kyoto in the name of the government, yet they are regarded by many as little more than a band of terrorists.

The story begins in January 1868?it was not until nine months later that this year was retroactively declared the first year of Meiji?when, despite the formal return of power to the imperial court the previous autumn, it remained unclear exactly who was in charge of the Japanese state. Late one snowy night, a badly wounded samurai appears at the Osaka residence of the powerful feudal lord representing the Nanbu domain of northern Honshu. The samurai is Kan'ichiro Yoshimura, age 35, who had deserted his post as a low-ranking retainer to the lord of Nanbu some three years before in order to join the Shinsengumi. Having suffered substantial injuries in a battle with imperial court partisans, he is seeking refuge with his former employer. He begs for mercy, and to be allowed to return to his native home, but his childhood playmate Jiroemon Oono, who is not only the top Nanbu official in residence but one of the lord's highest advisors, coldly orders him to commit harakiri.

The story switches between the first-person narrative of Yoshimura as he faces his fate, and the narrative of a newspaper reporter fifty years later, who is seeking out and interviewing six men who knew Yoshimura during his Shinsengumi days. Little by little the historical events of the time and the details of Yoshimura's life unfold. The reader is shown a man of untiring industry, distinguished in both swordsmanship and scholarship, who is never without a smile but can also be very tight with money?a combination of qualities that cause him to be variously regarded as a model samurai and a model pauper. The picture that emerges is of a man who saw his primary loyalty as being neither to the government nor to the emperor, but rather to his own family.

(Vol. 1) ISBN 978-4167646028, 463pages

(Vol. 2) ISBN 978-4167646035, 454pages

About the Author

Jirō Asada (1951–) joined Japan's Self-Defense Forces upon graduating from high school, professedly to find out why famed author Yukio Mishima had committed suicide. After his discharge, he sold women's apparel while writing on the side, until abruptly thrusting himself into the literary limelight by launching two hit picaresque series in succession in 1992 and 1993: Kinpika (All That Glitters, 3 parts) and Purizun hoteru (Prison Hotel, 4 parts). He received the Yoshikawa Eiji Prize for New Writers in 1995 for Metoro ni notte (On the Metro); the Naoki Prize in 1997 for The Stationmaster (tr. 2009); and the Shibata Renzaburo Award in 2000 for the historical novel Mibu gishi den (When the Last Sword is Drawn). In 2006 his collection of short stories set in the late Edo period, Ohara meshimase (Slit Your Belly), won both the Chuo Koron Literary Prize and the Shiba Ryotaro Prize; in 2008, Chugen no niji (Rainbow over China) won the Yoshikawa Eiji Prize for Literature; and in 2010, his World War II novel Owarazaru natsu (Endless Summer) garnered the Mainichi Publishing Culture Award. He has attained a position as one of Japan's leading authors, producing bestseller after bestseller across the full spectrum of entertainment fiction?long and short, contemporary and historical. He became president of the Japan P.E.N. Club in 2011. Books by this author